The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) appropriately enough, held it’s General Assembly meeting in Detroit, Michigan last week. On June 19th America’s 2nd largest “christian” denomination choose to abandon the faith when it decided by a 71%-29% vote to amend it’s constitution’s paragraph describing marriage.
The language was a compromise: marriage is a civil contract between “two people, traditionally a man and a woman.”
MaryAnn McKibben Dana, a Presbyterian pastor wrote an article for Time magazine where she stated, “With Thursday’s vote, the denomination I love and have been privileged to serve as a pastor for eleven years became a more just, inclusive, and Christ-like place.”
She further argued that the Presbyterian (U.S.A.) has not moved away from biblical values, “But we who celebrate this change have not abandoned the Bible. By affirming the right of committed gay couples to make life-long vows to one another, we are seeking to walk in the Way of Jesus, who stood with the outcast and proclaimed their full humanity.”
John Calvin and John Knox would be so proud. The Way of Jesus has never included sexual immorality nor could it.
Mark Tooley, president of the Institute on Religion and Democracy, a conservative Think Tank believes this could be the death knell for the PC(USA). “By overturning natural marriage the PC(USA) is only accelerating its already fast-paced demise. It will become even smaller, whiter and older,” he said, according to Charisma News. ”Only declining denominations reject historic Christian standards and in nearly every case that rejection reinforces the decline.”
Ironically, MaryAnn McKibben Dana agrees, “The PC(USA) has lost a number of churches in the last few years since clearing the way for LGBT persons to be ordained as pastors, elders and deacons. More will undoubtedly leave.”
I could write much about this choice the Presbyterians have made, but I think it best to leave it to the Lord who said, “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.”
This is satire, right? Or are you actually agreeing that by embracing gay marriage, the church risks becoming “whiter and older”? Isn’t that counterintuitive? The old white people (look in the mirror, Pastor Holt) are likely the only ones who would have a problem with this. Time to stop mis-using religion to veil your bigotry.